Greetings from the Great Bend Public Library! November is a busy month in the library world. It’s not only Kansas Reads to Preschoolers month, but also Dino-vember and we are celebrating Giving Tuesday all month long! Kansas Reads to preschoolers is an annual event to celebrate literacy and instill a love of reading in children from birth to preschoolers. As part of the month-long celebration on Saturday, Nov. 13, we will have a concert with author and musician Dino O’ Dell as well as a craft and some yummy snacks! Our children’s librarians will also be visiting daycares and preschools all month long to hand out copies of this year’s book, “Grumpy Bird,” as part of the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers celebration.
Starting now through Nov. 30 you can give to your favorite non-profit, like the Great Bend Public Library, through the Golden Belt Community Foundation. Giving Tuesday itself is on Nov. 30 but donations can be made all month long leading up to the big day.
Donations help us continue to have community programs like our summer library program, which served 8,439 individuals this year alone and is entirely run by donations. We never charge for any events, crafts, or activities we do, like allowing patrons to print up to 10 free pages a day to our public computers, or during events like Kansas Reads to Preschoolers where we visited around 25 preschools and daycares gifting books to every child to help instill a love of reading early. Donations also help us continue to buy materials that everyone can enjoy. This year our goal is to raise $1,500 to help fund and bring exciting programs to our community all year round. If you would like to help us reach our goal, donations can be made online at GoldenBeltGives.org/GreatBendPublicLibrary or by picking up a giving form at the library front desk.
As for Dino-vember, be sure to check out our children’s area for some fun dino-related activities all month long, as well as, our dino book displays. Where you can find books to check out all about dinosaurs for your little paleontologist. Check out our social media as well for some dinorific facts throughout the month as well.
Next week we have a few teen events to look forward to. Monday starting at 3:30 p.m. is our next Teen Cafe. This month along with the usual coffee and cocoa for our teens’ enjoyment, they can decorate their own coffee mug to take home. Then Thursday we have our next Teen Manga and Anime meeting. This month we are reading and watching “Sweetness and Lightning,” the story of a father and his young child who bond over learning to cook after the loss of his wife and her mother. To go with that theme we will be having a ramen cook-off! Teens will have the chance to team up to make crazy ramen concoctions in an attempt to win the title of ramen top chief and the coveted golden chopsticks. Copies of the manga are available at the front desk for anyone wishing to read the manga before the meeting.
For our other events visit our Facebook and our website, greatbendpl.info. You can also message us on Facebook, email us at gbcirc@gmail.com, or give us a call at 620-792-2409 for any questions about our programming or services.
This article is written by Hannah Grippin, Outreach Manager at the Great Bend Public Library.
